Let’s make the road safe

Just when I thought I have experienced the worst road flood. It turned out it was just a regular and daily routinity on Jakarta’s road condition when it was raining. I had through a terrible road flood when I went to Pondok Cina (Depok) from my home. It was raining hard and I cut through Univ. of Indonesia complex. Just leaving Polytechnic gate, I was on a curve crossing a small river which connects a natural water resource (Bahasa: situ) and a valley. The valley separates faculty of economy and cultural sciences. When it was raining, the small river overflow the road above it. I was driving a Piaggio PX-150 and swam through the flooded road. I mean I was really swimming on the water instead of driving through the flood. I had trouble to maintain wheel grip. As I remember, it was like a 2-stroke 150cc 2-wheeled boat.

Until I regularly commute between my home (Depok–a suburb city) and Jakarta to the office. I have never feared and worried about hard rain since I have well prepared. Two set of raincoat, a pair of sandals, and good helmet assures me to drive through the rain. The perfect and goodly shaped Piaggio was ideal to prevent water splashes from my own driving. Unlike non-scooter motorcycle, Vespa (as well as other scooter) have large wing on the front side to protect me from front tyre’s splash. The raincoat and sandals are good to protect me from unwanted splashes from other vehicle.

It was fine when I travelled between Depok-Ps. Minggu, or Depok-Salemba. But someday, I need to find another low traffic route to go from Salemba-Mampang. Sinces it was raining, the usual route (Salemba-Manggarai-Pancoran-Mampang) was already crowded. I thoguht Kuningan route would provide more space than the usual route. No suspicion until I hit the Jl. Rasuna Said (the official name of Kuningan road). The rain was OK for me. But the road flooded with water, reaching 50cm deep. The water height was a problem for my low-road clearance exhaust. If the traffic is till flowing, I have courage to drive through while maintaing my throttle high to prevent water flooded my exhaust. But the traffic were not flowing and it turned out that cars avoiding the flooded too since it was too deep. The worst section had about 80cm deep. With that condition, I decided to stop by at unflooded area waiting for the flood gone. Because 10 minutes driving on flooded water had cause the Piaggio’s gear hard to change.

Today (2005/09/30), on Friday evening, I was on the way to Rudy’s office. The crowded and flooded Jl. Supomo, especially the section across Sahid University made me divert route. I thought the alternative route through Tebet Barat was less flooded. But it wasn’t and I chose to stop by at a near mosque avoiding flooded-traffic jam and conduct Maghrib pray. I finally realize that it was just a usual evening of flooded Jakarta. After all when I watch the news about Jakarta’s flood on the day I got trapped at Kuningan, the other road had gone worst, stopping almost every vehicle.

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